“So Matthias said that you have a large family,” Alexandra said. “How many of you are their?”

“About thirty,” Faith replied. “And a couple of smaller families. I’m told that’s quite a lot.” She paused at the startled whispers that broke out around the room. “I take it that was correct.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Alexandra said. “I don’t doubt your word but can you prove you family is that large?”

Faith considered the question for a long moment before replying. “I could bring them here but that might not be practical.”

“It wouldn’t be,” Alexandra said. “Perhaps do it the opposite way and have you take a group of us around to meet them…” She hesitated. “Likely away from their homes as you have no reason to trust us given your unfortunate history with the Turners.”

“We’ll vouch for the size of their family,” Lily said suddenly. “Think about it, they would have to be major family size to have destroyed us so comprehensively.”

“Lily is right,” Julie said. “The Silver’s were large enough to not only drive the Taylors off but track them back to their homes and strike back.”

“Caro has a point there,” Trent said. “They must be at least as large as the Taylors were to have done that.”

Faith shuffled at that. “We only went after them because they kept coming back.”

“No one is faulting your family for defending yourselves,” Alexandra said. “But I do agree with what they are saying. She stood and looked around at the others. “So should we offer the Silvers are seat at the table.”

The vote to do so only took a moment and was unanimously positive. As soon as it was concluded one of Trent’s family ran forward with a chair as Trent and Sonia shifted their chairs to allow it to be placed between them. Faith looked nervous as she sat down.

“Don’t worry.” Trent ave her a warm smile. “Sonia Keefe and I have your back while you’re learning.”

“Thank you,” Faith said.

“You’re welcome,” he said, “So what’s next on the agenda.”

“Getting enough supplies to reopen the school next week,” Alexandra said. “We need everyone to raid their supplies.”

“Well everyone has kids here so I’m sure we can do that,” Trent said. “But we’ll also need to set up guards now the government know where we are. I still don’t trust that man, no matter how accommodating he seemed.”

“Agreed,” Alexandra said. “We need to sort that out. They might be foolish enough to think our kids are a soft target.”

“We also need to agree on tactics to spot and rescue the emergent kids,” Sonia said.

“Fortunately we seem to be in a lull,” Adrian said. “Hopefully that will give us the time we need to organise more teams.” He paused then added. â€œBut we also need to figure out a way to strike against Xantaria. We don’t know what she’s doing so we need to distract her so she can’t do it.â€